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Move over President Obama: It's House Republican Speaker John Boehner's turn to demonstrate that he can't govern. Boehner, bending to pressure from his party's brawling Tea Party wing, is pursuing a high-wire fiscal strategy that could result in a government shutdown in a few weeks, an event that might cause a flap among the market's seemingly unflappable bulls.

Based on last week's stock action, the bulls are ignoring the Grand Old Party's threat to create a debt-limit crisis to exploit for political gain. They also don't seem to believe Obama's threat to behave as obstinately as his opposition. Yet, if Republicans and Democrats don't agree on a debt-ceiling increase by Oct. 1, a shutdown of the federal government is assured.

Hired political experts such as Gregg Hartley, vice chairman of the lobbying and advisory firm Cassidy & Associates, put the probability of a short-term shutdown at 100%. The GOP is driving it, but Democrats would benefit and so have no reason to budge. Because voters likely would blame the Republicans, a crisis would boost the Democrats in the 2014 midterm election. The House GOP will pass a debt-ceiling measure with spending and legislative proposals that Senate Democrats can't swallow, including defunding Obamacare. Because there's no shot clock on Capitol Hill, the Senate Democrats will play a four-corners defense, taking their good old time rewriting and passing the measure before sending it back to the House for a vote at the 11th hour, where it will fail.

In 2011, a similar debt-ceiling contretemps between Congressional Republicans and Democrats engendered several weeks of stomach-churning stock-market swings. The week of Aug. 7 was one of the wildest. On Monday, Aug. 8, the Dow industrials fell 635 points. On Tuesday, it rose 430 points. On Wednesday, it slid 520 points. On Thursday, the Dow rose 423, and on Friday, Aug. 12, it climbed 126 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week at 11,269, down 1.5%. Barron's late, great Alan Abelson noted that advances led declines by 90% one day and vice versa the next day, for four consecutive days.

A point of reference: The five best-performing groups from Aug. 5, 2011, through Aug. 19, 2011, were the S&P Gold index, up 10.42%; the S&P 500 Gas Utilities index, up 2.18%; the S&P 500 Residential REITS index, which advanced 1.97%; the S&P 500 Office REITs index, up 1.93%; and the S&P General Merchandise index, which rose 1.82%. The five worst groups were the stocks in the S&P 500 Real Estate Services index, down 24.90%; the S&P 500 Tires and Rubber index, off 19.70%; the S&P 500 Homebuilding index, down 18.23%; the S&P 500 Motorcycling Manufacturing index, off 17.86%; and the S&P 500 Building Products index, which fell 17.65%. Banks also were hammered.

BOEHNER IS THE FIRST GOP SPEAKER in history to deal with a party so divided that it is the equivalent of two political parties. He's like a father under the thumb of his wayward kids. About 40 of the GOP's newest members were elected by their constituents specifically to stop Obamacare. Although there is no chance of this happening while Democrats control the Senate, these legislators feel compelled to try, regardless of the broader economic consequences.

This, no doubt, is one reason the Fed decided against ending its bond-buying program, which helps keep low-cost credit flowing. Ben Bernanke never underestimates the ability of Congress to blow up the economy. Neither should you.